WASHINGTON (AP) — Facing heat over its military support for Israel's war, the Biden administration is due to deliver a first-of-its-kind formal verdict this week on whether the airstrikes on Gaza and restrictions on delivery of aid have violated international and U.S. laws designed to spare civilians from the worst horrors of war.
A decision against close ally Israel would add to pressure on President Joe Biden to curb the flow of weapons and money to Israel's military. The Democratic administration took one of the first steps in that direction in recent days, when it paused a shipment of 3,500 bombs out of concern over Israel's threatened offensive on Rafah, a southern city crowded with more than a million Palestinians, a senior administration official said.
The administration agreed in February at the insistence of Democrats in Congress to a negotiated agreement mandating it look at whether Israeli forces in Gaza have used U.S.-provided weapons and other military assistance in a lawful manner.
Additionally, under the agreement, it must tell Congress whether it deems that Israel has acted to “arbitrarily deny, restrict, or otherwise impede, directly or indirectly,” delivery of any U.S.-supported humanitarian aid into Gaza for starving civilians there.
Officials said Wednesday they would not meet the day's deadline for the report to be delivered to Congress, but expected it would still come this week. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discussion internal administration deliberations.
Israel's campaign to crush the Hamas militant group after its surprise October attack — and the ensuing disaster for Gaza's civilians — have fueled a debate about whether the United States should act on grave human rights violations by one of its foreign recipients of military support when it sees them, as advocates say U.S. law requires, or only when it deems doing so serves U.S. strategic interests.
“While human rights is an important component of the national interest, American priorities are much broader — particularly in an era of strategic competition,” Idaho Sen. Jim Risch, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and GOP Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, the House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman, wrote last week in urging to Biden to repeal his February directive.
But Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, the Democrat who spearheaded congressional negotiations with the White House to mandate the review, told reporters he feared the administration may allow policy aims to shape the outcome of its review. Van Hollen said he supports a strong security partnership with Israel but believes the U.S. should apply standards evenly.
Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. security assistance. Palestinian suffering in the war in Gaza has churned up protests and other challenges for Biden at home and abroad as he seeks reelection against former President Donald Trump, a Republican.
The administration's findings must be “seen to be based on facts and law, and not based on what they would wish it would be,” Van Hollen told reporters last week.
At the time the White House agreed to the review, it was working to head off moves from the Democratic lawmakers and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont to start restricting shipments of weapons to Israel.
Israel launched its offensive after attacks led by Hamas killed about 1,200 people on Oct. 7. Nearly 35,000 Palestinian civilians, two-thirds of them women and children, have been killed since then, according to local health officials. U.S. and U.N. officials say full-fledged famine has set in in northern Gaza, owing to Israeli restrictions on food shipments and to the fighting.